Identifying and illuminating live Grateful Dead shows (and shows by band members) that are unknown or poorly documented.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

"Hartbeats" Family Dog On The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA August 28, 1969

The Hartbeats show on August 28, 1969 at Chet Helm's Family Dog On The Great Highway is only known from a tape in the Grateful Dead vaults. The tape is very interesting indeed, and yet, to my knowledge, nothing else whatsoever is known about this show, even though it begs a variety of very interesting questions. I am writing this post to consider the various unknowns about this show, in order to indicate how many interesting questions remain unanswered. Anyone with some hard information, or even entertaining speculation, is encouraged to Comment.

Known Facts

Knowledge of the show comes from a Bear cassette master of the show labeled "Hartbeats," with the date of the show and presumably the location.

A flute player joins in at the beginning of "Dark Star," just shy of the 10-minute mark, but he is hard to hear and seems to drop away

Inferred Facts

Chet Helms saw the Family Dog as a "community resource," so casual jam-type shows seem to have been common, if hard to trace

The Grateful Dead were playing on Friday and Saturday night (August 29-30), so it seems plausible that they might set up their equipment a day early to have some kind of jam session.

This is the first time I am aware of Howard Wales playing with Jerry Garcia

Howard Wales band, AB Skhy, had moved from Wisconsin in May 1968, but to my knowledge they had not played with the Grateful Dead prior to this date

Unknowns

I know of no advertisement, notice, flyer or review of this show, and I have looked at just about all of the SF Chronicles as well as the relevant listings for the Berkeley Barb (and Tribe), and there is no listing or mention for even a "jam session" at the Dog

Did anyone other than Owsley use the name "Hartbeats" for this show? Was that just convenient shorthand for a jam, or was that a name that Garcia and others actually used? It wasn't actually used in 1968, and although I'm aware that it appeared on a 1969 bill at the Matrix and 1970 at the Dog, but we don't have have tapes of those shows

Assuming we have the complete "Hartbeats" set, did any other bands appear? If they did, did any Grateful Dead members (or Howard Wales) sit in?

Who played flute?

Some Speculation
August 1969 is exactly when Garcia starts working publicly with the New Riders of The Purple Sage, and I don't think its a coincidence that the same time frame seems to indicate the first stirrings of what would become the Jerry Garcia Band, through the circuitous route of Howard Wales jam sessions at The Matrix in 1970. The Family Dog on The Great Highway was intended as a sort of hippie clubhouse, and Dead manager Lenny Hart had good relations with Chet Helms. On top of that, since the Dead were debuting at the Family Dog the next night, the pre-opening night jam may have served as sort of equipment check as well.

The 1968 Matrix tapes that circulate as "Mickey and The Hartbeats" were actually billed as Jerry Garcia And Friends. Garcia made a casual remark between songs that the band was known as Mickey And The Hartbeats, which may have been a sort of joke, and the name has stuck over the years. The Hartbeats were billed twice more in, at the Matrix in February 1969 (Monday thru Wednesday February 24-26) and at the Family Dog in April 1970 (Friday thru Sunday April 17-19). We know nothing of the Matrix shows, and have only a setlist for the April shows, which suggests that it was a tryout of the acoustic configuration that would debut publicly on the May 1970 Eastern tour. We can make assumptions about what "Mickey And The Hartbeats" implied, but there is surprisingly little real information. Nevertheless, it seems that "Hartbeats" implied Jerry Garcia and other Dead members, but no commitment to playing regular Grateful Dead songs or a typical set.

Given the distance of the Great Highway from the rest of San Francisco and particularly Marin, I am less likely to think that anyone there just "dropped by," in distinct contrast to, say, Broadway, where the Matrix was located. Someone invited Howard Wales, and someone invited him when Constanten wasn't present. This leads me to think that Wales had already jammed with Garcia, since it seems like such a trek. I am sure Wales wanted to jam with Garcia, but he was a working musician with a band, so coming out to a jam would take time away from his band, and he would be less likely to do it if he wasn't guaranteed a real chance on stage. Howard Wales may be the one person who really recalls this event, since to Lesh, Hart and Kreutzmann (and the crew) this was just another night at the Dog.

As for the flute player, no one obvious comes to mind. I have examined the tendency of Deadheads to assume that Charles Lloyd always played with them, and I find that is as unlikely as ever. Since I am the official historian for Sanpaku, whose flute player had jammed with the Dead as recently as the week before, I was able to confirm that Gary Larkey did not play with them that night. I looked at various jazz bookings, at the Both/And and elsewhere, but no obvious candidates present themselves. The reed-less McCoy Tyner Trio was playing the Both/And, and while there was a jazz festival in Concord, no flute players stuck out as likely to make the trip far across the bay.

As long as I am reduced to shooting in the dark for a flute player, I will throw out two names:

Andy Kulberg of Seatrain: Kulberg had played bass and flute for Blues Project, and his band Seatrain still played the Blues Project instrumental "Flute Thing." Seatrain, based in the Bay Area, was billed at the Matrix all week. Granted, this would have created an inherent conflict--what was Kulberg doing at the Dog on a night when he was booked at the Matrix?--but the Dog may have started early and Seatrain may not have had to come on at the Matrix until later.

Steven Schuster: Schuster, a fine sax and flute player, had been the equipment manager for Quicksilver Messenger Service since 1967, and was a regular part of the scene. His instrumental abilities would come more to the fore in the 1970s, when he was a member of the Keith And Donna Band.

I could speculate more and more about different possibilities for the August 28, 1969 Family Dog show, but so little is actually known that it would be counterproductive. However, I am very interested in anyone else's ideas, and anyone who has the faintest scrap of information is also encouraged to weigh in.

Update: Ross did some great research, and suggests that this show took place during the afternoon. This would explain why the show was never advertised, since it was just a jam session, and why working musicians like Howard Wales and perhaps Andy Kulberg could jam without conflicts.

30 comments:

Part 1: My comment is going to be a mixture of fact and speculation. I have not checked with Jerry Garcia’s Middle Finger http://jgmf.blogspot.com/ but have looked at the Jerry Site regarding various dates in August 1969 and this post – and the associated scanned evidence which will have been mailed by the time you read this – will resolve or speculate to resolve:

(a) Propose an alternate solution for the August 28, 1969 tape – based upon something confirmed shouted by Jerry Garcia on August 19, 1969 – seemingly confirming that the Grateful Dead returned to San Francisco right after Woodstock. (b) Provide a rationale for the removal, or at least annotation of, the tentative Tuesday, August 19, 1969 date from the Jerry Site.(c) The erroneous use of the word “Tuesday” in the Berkeley Tribe.(d) A new date for the New Riders of The Purple Sage, with “Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead, and starring the fair-haired John Dawson on vocal and acoustical (sic) guitar”.

Part 2: The story starts around 6:00 am UK time this morning. With a cup of tea in hand I set about reading the overnight postings from Corry and found this article speculating on the August 28, 1969 Hartbeats tape. As ever, the conjecture was well founded. After hunting through the relevant copies of the Berkeley Barb, San Francisco Good Times and the Berkeley Tribe to no avail, I stumbled in to an article I must have only read recently and somehow not taken in. It sat immediately below a piece on the Wild West Festival which I recalled scanning only a few weeks ago. I am unable to post the article as part of a comment, but will e-mail it to both Corry and Joe this morning. So for now I shall quote from the article.

The piece appears on pp5 and pp24 of the August 22-29, 1969 Berkeley Tribe – anything contained in parenthesis within quotations has been added by me.

Our story begins: “It was Tuesday afternoon (August 19, 1969 – a known date of the meeting of the Common) at the Family Dog.” Just to be clear to some readers who may not be totally au fait with the location, the Family Dog had relocated from the Avalon Ballroom to the Family Dog at the Beach on the Great Highway by this time.

So attempting to address the four issues noted above in order:

(a) The second paragraph is what prompted me to write this, and I quote: “Nights? Nights?” Jerry Garcia was shouting, “what about during the day? We got musicians running around looking for a place to jam – why not here?”. The article then goes on to discuss various matters including the previous week’s hoe down, the following week’s light show and tape experience and generally encourage folk to come together to rejuvenate what was clearly a waning scene. So how about this: What if Chet did take Jerry’s advice and opened up the Great Highway for musicians to jam during the days? What if this tape is from August 28, 1969 and was recorded in the afternoon – when Andy Kulberg, or any one else for that matter, would likely have no binding commitments? Reading this article has raised an issue that I had never considered before – that maybe there were daytime jams with a “hanging out” style audience at the Family Dog. This would suit the itinerant musician Garcia. We know that the venue was used for meetings during the days – and meetings of the Common were reasonably well recorded.(b) I am going to take a flyer that the tentative date on the Jerry Site was originally sourced from someone reading this article, figuring out that Jerry was there during the day – reading a review of the NRPS appearance with the erroneous “Tuesday” and mistakenly assuming a NRPS show on the same date. As I will explain below, the “Tuesday” should have been a “Wednesday” and on the basis I would either annotate or remove the reference to a NRPS show on this date. However, I could imagine future prosopographers speculating that we now have evidence of Jerry returning to San Francisco immediately after Woodstock, and of Jerry being at the Common meeting in the same building earlier in the day, then it would not be unreasonable to assume that he took to the stage, guitar in hand, later that evening. There is nothing to substantiate that – but I would guess it could be speculated that it happened that way.

Part 3:(c) About a quarter of the way in to the article discussion begins “Last Tuesday (August 12, 1969) night, the Common put on a good ol’ hoedown. The dance hall was transformed in to a psychedelic barn with bales of hay, charcoal-roasted corn at ten cents a hit, and the New Lost City Ramblers (who were scheduled to play the Family Dog on August 15 and 16 with Mike Bloomfield & Nick Gravenites, Southern Comfort, Devil's Kitchen and Taj Mahal). Now the hoedown and square dance is a well documented event with a handbill circulating. I don’t have a copy to scan but it does appear in Eric King’s book as FD-690813 – and the date can be clearly seen as August 13. This is key to fixing the date. The hoedown had been advertised in the press and on a handbill as August 13, which was a Wednesday rather than a Tuesday. As such I consider the use, by Art Johnson of the Berkeley Tribe, of the word “Tuesday” in relation to the hoedown and square dance was erroneous – and probably led to an incorrect entry being made in to the database at the Jerry Site. (d) So hopefully I have now established the date of the hoedown, square dance, hayride and apple bob put on by the Common as Wednesday August 13, 1969. So to continue. The article then has a lengthy paragraph discussing a barter system that folks with no money could use for entry. This is then followed by the following eye watering paragraph: “At the square dance Tuesday (should be Wednesday as shown above) a new San Francisco band made its debut (not quite a debut but certainly an early show). The New Riders of the Old Purple Sage, with Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead, and starring the fair-haired John Dawson on vocal and acoustical (sic) guitar. The sound was as smooth as the Dead is, yet it had this sweet country pulse and tune that made you swoon.” Too good to be true. Again I think reasonable justification for the erroneous Jerry Site date. I did for a lingering moment think that the Tuesday referred to in the above quotation could have been August 19, but the following paragraph discusses the previous week’s event, a sock hop put on by Fuzzy Dice Productions. That was held on Thursday August 7 – and again it is well documented.

Although it is still pretty early on a Sunday morning, I am reasonably comfortable with these ramblings. Ross.

You asked who the fluteplayer might have been who played with the Grateful Dead. I happened to run into someone named Moses or maybe Moses, the flute who said he sometimes played with the Grateful Dead, when I was helping with a Washougal, Washington music festival in 1970.

I was there for the concert on the 28th and remember all the bands playing, the Dead, New Riders, and Commander Cody. There was also a short set from Mickey and the Heartbeats which played either during or after the normal Dead set. The hartbeats did High Heeled Sneakers and maybe even Schoolgirl. It was a fantastic night.

gmann, thanks for the fascinating comment. Thus it appears that the surviving Hartbeats tape is really from the evening, and not an afternoon jam session. Do you recall who was on stage for the "Hartbeats" set?

This also confirms that there were Dead, New Riders and Cody performances for Thursday Aug 28 as well. Fascinating.

If you listen to the applause at the end of the show, it sounds like a pretty big crowd. More importantly, Garcia says, "Thank you very much, folks, that's gotta be all for tonight." That just doesn't sound like the end of an afternoon jam...

So now I'm wondering, do we know for sure that there were any afternoon jams at the Family Dog?

LIA, the "Hartbeats" turn out to be infinitely interesting. They are always booked at interesting times in the Dead's history, and its always tantalizing to think about what it might have meant at the time.

I was also wondering if gmann's comment actually confirms anything. How do we know he was there on August 28? Some details sound strange - for instance, the possibility of Pigpen singing Schoolgirl with Wales & the Hartbeats does not ring true. The idea that this "short" 90-minute set took place alongside a normal Dead set is also bizarre.Though admittedly, it might have happened just that way... Maybe this was a very-late-night set that took place after a full show.

But I find the initial idea more compelling - that the band had the night free, the Family Dog was available for them to come a day earlier, and Howard Wales was also willing to join them for an evening. With this show not advertised in advance, they had the freedom to take chances & experiment.I think that better explains why we have a tape labeled "Hartbeats". Otherwise, if the full Dead were doing a set the same night, I'd have to ask why Weir sat out this set? (Too intimidated by Wales?)

Just a few weeks earlier, on 8/3, they'd done a Dead show at the Family Dog with the fiddle & sax player; but both Weir & Pigpen participated in that one.The only reason we know of this show is because of the tape... Without tapes, I suspect there might be a number of other Hartbeats jams hidden in '69.

JGMF - What was the question about the Hartbeats, and what was the context? Were they talking about the current scene, or the past?

One thing that puzzles me, and may be unanswerable, is how many fans in SF knew about the Hartbeats name? Though we just see the name in a few newspaper listings, was it common knowledge who they were?

It's interesting that Jerry left out Billy - also interesting that we have no confirmed "me and Mickey and Phil" shows after 8/69.

I still think there's merit in the idea that "Hartbeats" were sometimes billed just due to the contracted dates with Bill Graham (those April '70 shows were definitely not just "me and Mickey and Phil")- but admittedly, with Fillmore/Winterland dates every two months in 1970, that would pretty much cover the whole year.

I worked at the Family Dog on the the Great highway from just before it was open to the public in june 1969 until it closed in late august, early september 1970. The Hartbeats were not well known to the general public as it was sort of a cover name for several different groups that centered around members of the Grateful dead. The same is true of Bobby Ace and the Cards from the Bottom of the Deck who originally consisted of Bob Weir and friends and later Bob and Jerry together until Bob dropped out and the project eventually morphed into the New Riders. I know all this because I was a frequent house guest of Bob Weir and his girl friend Frankie during that time. As far as the issue of bands jamming during the day at the Playland location goes, it did happen, but not that often and it was never announced to the public. Most of the ones I remember took place after we were done with the commons meetings. I also remember that some bands would occasionally rehearse there as well.I hope that helps a little bit...

Very interesting, Terry. The Hartbeats seem to have been an ever-changing concept.

I'm particularly intrigued by this: "Bobby Ace and the Cards from the Bottom of the Deck originally consisted of Bob Weir and friends and later Bob and Jerry together until Bob dropped out and the project eventually morphed into the New Riders." We know a little about Jerry playing with others in '69 (though a lot is still a mystery), but almost nothing about Bob & what he was up to. There seems to be a whole story there that's been completely lost since none of those "Bobby Ace" shows were taped. The idea of a non-Dead "Bob & Jerry" act playing in '69 is, for instance, news to me! It may have leaked not only into the New Riders, but into the Dead's acoustic sets the following year. More details about the various groups/projects the Dead members played in are always welcome!

As far as I can remember, the Bobby Ace project Could at times be called the hartbeats when they played. The same general lineup of musicians could go under either name and sometimes under no name at all but simply be listed as 'special guests'. One of the things we have to remember is that these guys all loved to play gigs and they found that it was sometimes easier to do so if people didn't know they were The ones doing it. I've seen articles about the supposed firing of pigpen and Bobby during that period of time, which may explain the Bobby Ace gigs, but it honestly doesn't make much sense to me since even at the first Bobby Ace gig, Jerry was there, though he didn't play. I do also remember a 1 or 2 gigs/jams? that were strictly acoustic were Bob played guitar and Jerry played banjo with one or two other guys, at a couple of very small venues, though for the life of me I can't remember where they were. Don't get me wrong,I'm by no means a Grateful Dead expert, I wasn't really that involved with the band itself. It was just that Frankie and Bobby were friends of mine and I had been one of the Teenagers that had lived up at Rancho Olompali next to Micky's ranch in Navato and I somehow found myself hanging out with them quite a bit.

The "firing" of Weir was in Sept/Oct 68 (though he didn't actually leave the band), and that was when the Hartbeats got started as a jamming project without him or Pigpen. It seems like the Bobby Ace thing got started a little later, when he was feeling more secure in the band! We know of a couple Bobby Ace shows - one at the California Hall in June 69 (with John Dawson & David Nelson, later of NRPS), and then there were some shows at the Family Dog in April 70 which were billed as both the Hartbeats and Bobby Ace, where NRPS also played. From what we know, these shows seem to have been mostly country covers & stuff that was later done in the Dead's acoustic sets. Yes, it definitely would be hard to trace more of these types of shows if they were just listed as "special guests"! But it figures.

The memory of Jerry playing banjo is very valuable - we don't have any record of him on banjo during this period, except for a bluegrass show with High Country at the Matrix in Feb 69. So it's quite a surprise to hear about him playing it at an acoustic show with Weir - I'd have expected him to be doing more pedal-steel stuff in late 69/early 70.

"I had been one of the Teenagers that had lived up at Rancho Olompali next to Micky's ranch in Navato and I somehow found myself hanging out with them quite a bit."

Terry, I am doing some writing about Olompali. I'd love to hear any recollections, just engage some conversation! You can email me directly at jgmfblog@gmail.com, or I am sure these guys would love to see Olompali memories, too.

Is there anywhere in the suite of Corry Arnold or LIA blogs a "placeholder" entry on Rancho Olompali?

LIA, yeah, it's an interesting point about the Jerry-Bobby acoustic set. We always imagine that at that 12/19/69 show, when Phil was late, they just picked up and started playing the acoustics. Doesn't Jerry say something like "Me and Bobby Ace here are gonna regale you with some old favorites."? And they are tight from the get-go.

It's quite possible that the acoustic duet was more planned, more rehearsed, than maybe we have imaged before it comes into public view (and historical memory) on 12/19/69.

I remember the California Hall gig fairly well because I went there with Bobby and you are correct that they did mostly country covers. unfortunately however, I've never been much of a country music fan so I didn't really pay much attention to what they were playing. I know this is treading on sacred ground for some of you guys here, but if the truth be told I was never really a Grateful Dead fan back in those days. I've come to appreciate them so much more since then. I was much more of a fan of the hard blues rock was coming out of England at that time.

I remember Jerry being at the California hall gig because of an amusing incident that happened backstage. Neither Bob or I smoked pot, but we always rolled our own cigarettes. We both used to smoke target tobacco. I had just finished hand rolling a cigarette when Bobby came off the stage. I had just lit it when he asked me for a drag of it. ( it was not uncommon to share a cigarette with somebody back in those days)anyway, Jerry stepped up and intercepted it before I could hand it to him and thinking it was a joint took a huge hit off of it. Needless to say he wasn't particularly happy when he found out it wasn't a joint. at the time I felt pretty bad about it, but in hindsight it was pretty funny.

I do remember Jerry playing steel guitar during that period and the banjo playing that I remember may have been at the matrix. Since I happen to spend a lot of time backstage with those guys some of the stuff that I remember may have taken place while they were warming up before going on stage. Plus, being a musician myself I did sometimes pick up an acoustic guitar and jam with those guys when we were sitting around though never on stage. I found myself in a similar situation with James Gurley and Sam Andrew from big brother and it was because of James Gurley that I became a bass player. I later went on to help found the Bay area band Tommy Tutone and work with many other artists such as the pointer sisters, Ozzy Osbourne and Steve Jones of the sex pistols. I would not of been able to do any of this if these guys hadn't been kind enough to let a 16-year-old kid sit in with them from time to time...

Good to hear a bit more about the California Hall show! Most of the Dead apparently played at that one & the Bobby Ace shows in April 70; but any gigs Weir did with other players, or acoustically with Jerry, have been totally unknown. Given the amount of jamming some of these guys liked to do, I'd imagine there wasn't always that much distinction between onstage & offstage jams!

JGMF, I haven't written anything about Rancho Olompali. It would be great to read memories of the Olompali or Family Dog scenes, though, even if not Dead-related, since many of the folks at this blog are really into behind-the-scenes stories of 60s bands in general.

As far as the Family Dog - though lots of stuff wasn't taped of course, there are quite a few Dead jams with guests from the summer of 69 - this "Hartbeats" show with Howard Wales on 8/28, a show with unidentified sax & fiddle player on 8/3, Garcia & Hart jamming with the Airplane on 9/6, and a strange Dead/Airplane oldies jam thought to be from 9/7 (and the Airplane, I think, almost never played the Family Dog, so it's a little mystery why they were playing with the Dead there); and a little rehearsal of Easy Wind with guest guitarist dated 9/11, thought to be maybe from an afternoon rehearsal. In general the Dead's shows there were a lot looser & more laid-back than, say, at the Fillmore or Winterland... But usually Jerry's little sidebands (or the Hartbeats) would show up at the Matrix. We know about some of those Matrix shows because so many were taped (or at least announced) - but casual band jams at the Family Dog (by the Dead or any other bands) are harder to trace, so it would be good to know more about those.

Terry, thanks for adding all your fascinating memories. Do you recall if at the California Hall gig the "New Riders" (who probably weren't called that) played a separate set? That has always been my assumption.

Our knowledge of the setlist from California Hall comes from a Deadhead who took careful notes, but I don't think she would have written down the setlist for a proto-New Riders set.

Hmm, isn't mid-June 69 a little early for Dawson & Nelson to be playing separate "New Riders"-type sets? But who knows - they're known to have been at that show, as part of the "Bobby Ace" band.

I assumed that was why Terry saw NRPS as being an offshoot of the Bobby Ace project, since it sounds like he would've been more familiar with the shows Weir played than with Garcia's non-Weir country-music side-group. That's just a guess, though... A few good memories from someone who was there can make hay of our current theories!

Yes, you are correct. Aside from selling Jerry my comic book collection later on, almost all my dealings with him were related to being around Bob. I do have to tell you this though, Jerry was one of the nicest, kindest people I've ever had the pleasure to meet.

Your comic book collection! True, Jerry was a comic-book fiend, among other things. The Rolling Stone review of Hooteroll back in 1971 mentioned that Garcia was on the hunt for old EC Comics from the 50s, which he was especially fond of - apparently one of the first things he wanted to buy when the GD finally became financially stable was a complete EC Comics collection. (Garcia even wrote a little about EC Comics in '91 - http://www.nerdtoyourmother.info/Home/9th-art-patron/jerrygarciatalkscomics )

This is off the beaten track, but were there particular comics he sought from you, or did he take anything indiscriminately?

Most of the stuff I had were Marvel comics that were on the more obscure side. I had complete runs of Dr. Strange,Captain America, the Avengers, Thor, the X-men and Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. with a few short runs like the Silver Surfer, Captain Mar-vell and the SubMariner. A few abscure DCs as well, The Haunted Tank, The Losers and Sargent Rock. Jerry bought them all...